


Storm Soul

by Morningstarofnight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Wielder Anakin, Gen, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Hurricane Anakin, Meteorologist Obi-Wan, Mortis (Star Wars), Natural Disaster Anakin Skywalker, That's Not How The Force Works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 21:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16003682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morningstarofnight/pseuds/Morningstarofnight
Summary: Jedi meteorologist Obi-Wan Kenobi has been monitoring storms throughout the galaxy for 5 years. During a posting on Scarif, he gets into a situation that is Not What He Signed Up For when a Force-sensitive hurricane comes howling in. This is Obi-Wan Kenobi, meteorologist for the Jedi Temple, bringing you live updates as we track the path of Hurricane Anakin!





	Storm Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I know I have too many WIPs but hear me out on this. Current weather events got me to thinking, and the idea was both hilarious and fun so I decided to roll with it. I’ll be telling this story in a series of mini-chapters/scenes, kind of out of order.

I.

 “As you can see, the waves are already flooding the low-lying archipelagos here. We expect much of this area to be underwater within the day!” Obi-Wan shouted into the camera over the sound of the wind. Even behind the shields of the storm shelter, the noise was deafening. The ground shook with the crashing of the waves, and the palm trees twisted and bent at worrying degrees.

 “We urge all on-planet residents to seek shelter in a shielded building! That is all for now! This is Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi meteorologist! May the Force be with you!”

 The cameras shut off, and Obi-Wan breathed a sigh of relief. His Force sense was screaming at him—danger! Something was coming! He eyed the ominous black cloud on the horizon. It was visible now, not just a swirling smear of red and purple on the radar. It stretched long bands of cloud over the planet, beautiful and devastating. Obi-Wan didn’t need the Force to tell him that.

 It had gone quiet in his head, no confusing wash of inhuman emotion broadcasting pain into his mind. He could still feel the storm’s Force signature, however, like a star blazing towards him across the ocean. Unsettlingly powerful in ways beyond the natural course of the weather.

 He turned from watching the churning grey sea, intending to go back inside and hunker down with the camera droid, R2-D2. The droid, however, emitted a loud whistle and series of alarms, and Obi-Wan glanced behind him. He frowned. “There’s nothing there, R2.”

 “Master Jedi!” One of the shelter technicians came onto the deck and pointed. “There’s a person out there!”

 “ _What?_ ” Obi-Wan spun around, one hand on his lightsaber. He still couldn’t see anything but frothing waves, and his sense of the Force was drowning in the storm’s signature. Suddenly, he spied a pale body lying face-down on the sand, just letting the waves batter it.

 Obi-Wan charged past the shield, immediately staggering as the wind caught him in full force. Who, by stars, had been so foolish as to try to get to the beach at this hour? Were they even alive?

 As he neared the body, keeping a guarded eye on the rough water, Obi-Wan realized it was a human shape, a man, completely naked. “Hello!” he shouted. “Are you alive?”

 The body twitched, groaning like the creaking palm trees. Obi-Wan took off his Jedi robe, clinging tightly to it so the wind wouldn’t send it flying, and tried to help the man into it to give him some much-needed protection from the elements. The man stumbled drunkenly on two feet, and Obi-Wan quickly caught him before he fell, looping an arm around his shoulders. Half-dragging him, Obi-Wan reached the shelter much more quickly than his first trip, an odd lull in the wind offering them no resistance.

 Once inside, Obi-Wan bustled the stranger into the medcenter for real clothing and a check for injuries. Obi-Wan feared a concussion or worse, given how the man didn’t seem to understand how to put on the simple pants and shirt without help, but the medical droid’s scan revealed nothing—no brain trauma, no broken bones, _nothing_. It was a Force-sent miracle.

 The man was tall, with curly, sand-colored hair and pale skin. His eyes were a disconcerting shade of storm blue. He picked at the sleeve of his new shirt in fascination.

 “Hello there,” Obi-Wan said softly. “Do you know what happened? Do you know your name?”

 The man looked at him and blinked. “Aa—” he said, as if trying out the sound, then licked his lips. “Anakin.”

 “Yes, that’s the name of the storm. You were on the beach. Do you know how you got there?”

 A curious tendril of Force sense poked at him, more gently than usual, but Obi-Wan still wasn’t having any of it. _Not now, Anakin_ , he thought, swatting it away. It kept poking, until Obi-Wan slowly realized that it wasn’t coming from the sky, wasn’t coming from the hurricane that had been pestering him for days. It was coming from the man.

 “Obi-Wan,” he said intently.

 “That’s—that’s me,” Obi-Wan replied, staring at him, wondering how he could have missed that he was Force-sensitive. How _any_ of the Jedi could have missed him at all. His signature was nearly as great as the storm’s.

 “What’s your _name?_ ” Obi-Wan repeated.

 “My name is Anakin,” the man insisted.

 Obi-Wan looked into those eyes. _Storm blue_ , he had thought. He felt the Force signature again. Unmistakable.

 “Oh Force,” he breathed.

 

 II.

 Five months in paradise. Obi-Wan didn’t often get sent to _nice_ planets, because nice planets didn’t have storms. The locals, however, assured him that hurricane season was a yearly occurrence and a real danger to the planet’s countless chains of islands.

 “We’re sending you to Scarif,” Mace Windu had said. “Master Yoda has sensed a strange disturbance in the Force coming from that planet.”

 “What do you need me for?” Obi-Wan asked, baffled. “My area of expertise is the _weather_.”

 “You’re still an experienced Jedi, Master Kenobi,” said Mace. “The first in a thousand years to defeat a Sith.”

 Obi-Wan swallowed, an unexpected surge of emotion reminding him of Qui-Gon and just as quickly fading again.

 “Besides,” Mace continued, “we’re sending you there during hurricane season. Someone needs to be on the planet who can handle both whatever is causing the disturbance as well as a potential storm.”

 Obi-Wan’s ship touched down on a breezy beach port surrounded by palm trees. From the air, the water was a crystal clear, dazzling blue fading smoothly into white sand and lush green that dotted the islands. He could see where, in certain places on the planet, the shallows plummeted into deep, blue-black holes, underwater caves that sang with the lure of mystery.

R2 rolled after him down the boarding ramp, emitting a few disgruntled beeps. Water and droids tended not to mix well. Obi-Wan, for his part, allowed himself a moment of peace and appreciation. Balmy air blew his cloak around him, already too warm. The rustling palms belonged to a place and time distant from the technology of the port. Yes, he decided in satisfaction, this was a place ideal for meditation.

He couldn’t let himself get lost in the beauty of it all, though. The port itself was active, workers moving crates around and monitoring the comings and goings of the ships. Noise, and the harsh smell of burnt fuel, gradually filtered into Obi-Wan’s senses.

Another human greeted him, introducing herself as Cleo Jonos. She was short, round-faced, with smooth black hair cropped to her shoulders and friendly black eyes. “Welcome to Scarif, Master Jedi,” she said warmly. “If you’ll come with me.”

They began walking down the port road, towards a tall, shining metal-and-glass building with elegant sloped sides and dozens of weather instruments crowding the roof, jostling for space alongside solar tiling. A large satellite dish was planted near it, angling up towards space.

“You’ll be staying in our National Storm Center,” Cleo explained. “It’s a state-of-the-art place for weather monitoring and also serves as a storm shelter in times of crisis.”

“It’s hard to even imagine storms here,” Obi-Wan commented. “Aren’t the seas around here too shallow to support large storm systems?”

“Believe me, it looks peaceful now—just wait.” She laughed. “They come off the deep seas out east, and when they get to us—” She smacked a fist into her palm. “100+ wind speed and waves that nearly reach the treetops.”

Obi-Wan found he was disconcerted. Despite his experience, most of his work had been with planets renowned for their stormy weather—volcanic thunderstorms on Mustafar, the perpetual storm that was Kamino, all so regular you could set your chrono by them—and not on planets like Scarif, where the weather could turn in a heartbeat and defy even the best predictions.

He sensed confidence from Cleo, not fear. The people who lived here knew how to watch for and handle these storms. He would have to catch up to the learning curve.

 

III.

Obi-Wan folded his hands into the sleeves of his cloak and bowed as the holograms of the Jedi Council flickered into view. “I believe I’ve found your disturbance in the Force, Master Yoda,” he said.

“Oh?” the old Jedi’s ears perked up with interest.

“This storm I’ve been tracking…it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen, Masters. It’s strong in the Force.”

“A source of life, the Force is,” said Yoda. “That nature’s most powerful dangers are full of it, surprise me this news does not.”

“With all respect, Master, that is not what I mean,” Obi-Wan said, a touch of impatience coloring his tone before he breathed and composed himself. “The _storm itself_ is Force-sensitive.”

Whispering and muttering broke out. “Surely not!” Master Ki-Adi-Mundi scoffed. “A storm is not a sentient being, it should be incapable of manipulating or reaching out to the Force.”

Obi-Wan paused, glancing at the maps on the screens to his left. “I think it possible that by some gift of the Force, this storm has gained sentience. Did you know that the colonists here _name_ the hurricanes?”

“Whatever for?” Ki-Adi-Mundi asked.

“To tell them apart and keep memorial records of the most destructive, from what I’ve gathered.”

“They could just name them like droids…”

“They treat the storms as if they are individual personalities, Master,” Obi-Wan said. “And this one, Hurricane Anakin, is…well, _arrogant_ is the only way I can describe him—it.” Anakin had been giving him no end of frustration for days now. Just when Obi-Wan thought he had it figured out, the storm would throw him for a loop.

 “Such certainty I sense from you, Master Obi-Wan,” said Yoda.

 Obi-Wan sighed. “The storm has—reached out to me in the Force. That’s how I know. It can broadcast emotion, images—” _and words_ , he didn’t say. Let the Council chew on what it could begin to understand first.

 Mace Windu leaned his chin on his clasped hands, brow furrowed. “What purpose could there be for a Force-sensitive storm? What is it capable of? Why does it exist?”

 “I don’t know, Master.”

 Obi-Wan left that briefing feeling more unsettled than before.

  

IV.

 Anakin. The hurricane that spun ever closer to shore, its outer bands just touching the many islands and beginning its onslaught of rain and wind. It had a name, a Force signature, and an eye looking down in judgment.

 Anakin. The man that had washed on shore, strong with the Force and so uncanny that Obi-wan had trouble looking him in the—eye.

 What _was_ he? Obi-Wan didn’t think any storm in the world, Force-sensitive or not, could be sentient enough to spawn a living creature’s body.

 They sat opposite each other, both leaning against the wall of the medcenter. Obi-Wan tried to remember his training, to calm his pounding heart and release fear into the Force so he could deal with the situation with a clear head.

 Anakin didn’t seem to notice, instead examining his body with interest, turning his hands this way and that and wiggling the fingers. “I didn’t expect to be so—small,” he said with surprise. “You are so tiny and weak.”

 Obi-Wan tried hard not to take offense, and rationally considered that to a storm 600 klicks wide, humans were unfathomably small.

 “You can speak,” he managed. “How can you speak?”

 “Language is not the issue,” Anakin said dismissively. “It is expected of this form, so it is done.”

 “Next question,” Obi-Wan said, finding firmer footing. “How did you become human? _Why?_ How are you here _and_ …there?” He gestured at the window, through which he could see that the storm was still encroaching.

 Anakin hesitated, also looking to the window. Obi-Wan felt a deep longing and pang of loss from the man through the Force.

 “I don’t know,” Anakin said quietly.

 Great, Obi-Wan thought. He had been counting on the hurricane having any kind of plan.


End file.
